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Last month the Office of Fair Trading
launched an investigation in to free smartphone and tablet apps that
are targeted at children and encourage them to buy extra features –
racking up substantial bills.

It has written to companies who offer such games asking them for information on how they advertise to children.

Shocked
parents have complained about sums as much as £70 for a single item
being taken from their bank accounts after very young children purchased
extras.

Child's play: Research found that eight-year-olds tended to run up the highest bills, adding an average £59.59.

Brett Siddons, head of consumer
marketing for Windows Phone, said: 'Our research reveals parents are
worried about the impact of app and in-app purchases on their bills and
we understand the stress this can cause.

'With
technology becoming more and more intuitive, it’s important that
parents can trust in the technology they use and feel as safe as
possible when handing over their smartphone and tablet devices to their
children.'

Windows Phone conducted the research to promote the launch of its phone-within-a-phone feature, called Kid’s Corner, that allows parents to select which apps and features children can use – helping stop shock bills.

WARNING: Groupon nightmare shows mistakes are easy to make on smartphones

In January, This is Money revealed the
case of child daycare manager Helen Gaze, 29, who let her 5-year-old nephew Harry play with her mobile phone - only to noticed two weeks later that £519 was
missing from her account.

Little Harry had strayed from looking at
photos and playing games to unwittingly buying a trip to
Nepal on the discount shopping app Groupon.

'My details were already stored from a
previous purchase with Groupon online, and this meant that with just one
click the holiday was paid for out of my account,' said Helen, from
Manchester.

'I had no idea that this would happen
and I was in complete shock. There is no warning on the app and with
just one click he managed to spend over £500.'

Because she didn’t notice the missing
money immediately, Groupon would only refund her credit for the website.
But through a ‘chargeback’ scheme run by major banks that offers some protection against
losses to debit card users, she eventually got the money back.

A Groupon spokesman said: 'Customers can
prevent this happening by not storing their details on their account if
they are not the only person who has access to their computer or mobile
phone.

'This means that they will have to enter
their card details each time as an extra precaution. If they have their
details stored, a purchase can be made more easily.'

Helen pointed out, though, that she was
not notified when downloading the app to her phone that her card
information was automatically stored from previous purchases and she
wasn't alerted the she might need to put a security measure in place.